1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for producing cast products and, more particularly, to an apparatus in which non-solid materials including water, paste-like chocolate, foodstuffs such as fish cake and fish paste, stationery such as rubber erasers, and daily necessities such as soap are filled in an elastic mold of open-bag shape, and are then solidified to yield cast products.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, a variety of cast products including foodstuffs have been produced by using molds. Such conventional molds have been constructed of a plurality of split molds made of a rigid body in accordance with the configuration of cast products to be obtained using the molds.
According to these conventional methods, materials are first filled into the split molds, allowed to solidify inside the molds, and are then withdrawn by separating the split molds.
With such a conventional method using the split mold, the filling material is filled inside the split mold, and after the filled material is solidified inside the split mold, the filled material is withdrawn by dividing the split mold.
These split molds, however, tend to leave the mark of the joint of the mold on the surface of the product thus formed, resulting in lower product values. In addition, a large number of molds and complicated production steps are required especially when products of complicated shapes are desired to be formed.
Furthermore, since the split mold is made of a rigid body, the manufacture of the split mold itself is expensive and the product cost tends to be high. Especially when a variety of products are produced in small lots, the cost of the split mold occupies a greater part of the total cost of the product, and this almost prohibits the actual production of desired products.
In addition, if the split mold made of a rigid body is used, in the case of a filling material whose volume changes with temperatures when it solidifies, the split mold often breaks under a high pressure or a vacuum which may be applied to the mold during solidification.
Therefore, a measure has been devised to use as the mold an elastic mold having an open-bag shaped filling section so as to permit production of cast products which are free from joint marks, to reduce the production costs of the mold itself, prevent the mold from becoming damaged, and to substantially simplify the production process.
However, there are cases where it is desirable to produce cast products by using two or more kinds of material. In such a case, if, for instance, a plurality of different kinds of material are to be laminated in the height-wise direction of the cast product, it it possible to produce such a product by filling the filling material comprising different materials into the elastic mold via a filling nozzle in a plurality of cycles.
When the cast product is produced by using two or more kinds of material, there is a case where it is desirable to form the cast product into a double structure by dividing the materials into an inside portion an outer peripheral portion of the cast product.
Specifically, such cases include those in which whiskey is filled inside chocolate, or ordinary chocolate and white chocolate are formed into a double structure.
In such a case, it has been impossible to produce the cast product by merely filling the filling material into the elastic mold and solidifying the filled material.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an apparatus for producing cast products which is capable allowing a filling material to be adhered to an inner peripheral surface of an elastic mold and to be solidified in that state, thereby producing hollow cast products and meeting the demand for diverse cast products.